


Box Braids

by EndlessMidnightSky



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Blue Team, Caboose's 17 sisters, Fluff, Gen, Team Building, box braids, but not romantic fluff, unless you want to see it that way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 16:46:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2780444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EndlessMidnightSky/pseuds/EndlessMidnightSky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tucker's having trouble braiding his hair and ends up getting help from the last person he expected.</p><p>Just another day on Blue Team.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Box Braids

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by getintherobot who said: "tucker doing box braids and caboose actually being able to help (he has seventeen sisters im sure hes learned some things along the way) and in return tucker cuts cabooses hair so its not getting in his eyes all the time and basically just tucker+caboose bonding is what im saying"
> 
> My knowledge of box braids comes from looking stuff up while writing this, so feel free to correct me if I got anything wrong.

"God dammit!"

Caboose paused mid-step with one foot hovering in the air as the curse filtered out into the hall.

It had come from Tucker’s room, which meant it had probably been Tucker who said it. It sounded like Tucker, Church wasn't here and he'd seen Wash outside just now and was pretty sure he couldn't teleport. Yeah, it was probably Tucker.

He put his foot down, but not in the place he had originally been going to put it because he didn’t want to go that way anymore. Instead, he wanted to go to Tucker’s room to find out what was wrong.

"Hello!" he greeted as he opened the door. "I heard you yell and came to see if you had lost something."

Tucker jumped which was impressive because he had been sitting down and you need your feet if you're trying to jump properly.

"Caboose! What did I tell you about knocking before coming in!" he exclaimed.

"Yes, but there isn’t a sock on the doorknob which means I am allowed in," Caboose pointed out, double checking the door he’d just come through. Definitely no sock.

"Dude, if there’s a sock on the door, don’t even knock," Tucker said. "But you need to knock even there isn’t a sock on the door. Little thing called privacy. Perhaps you've heard of it?"

"Oh, I don't really listen to much, so... probably not." He brushed his hair back from where it had flopped into his eyes with one hand. "What if there’s two socks on the door?"

"There will never be two socks on the door."

"But then one sock will get lonely!"

Tucker groaned and hid his face in his hands, muttering something that Caboose couldn’t hear, though he imagined it was an acceptance of his brilliant logic. There were too many single socks these days. Caboose had tried putting them with a new partner, but it just didn't quite work. It was very sad.

"What do you want?" Tucker asked, lifting his face again.

"You yelled. I thought you had lost something and came to see if you needed help finding it."

"Why the fuck would me yelling make you think I’d lost something?"

"Oh, people always yell when they lose things," Caboose said knowingly. "Like Grif when he lost his snacks, or Church when he lost Tex, or Sarge when he lost his shotgun, or-"

"Yeah, okay, okay, I get it. Shut up. No, I haven’t lost anthing."

"Oh. Then why were you yelling?"

Tucker scowled.

"If you _must_ know,” he said “I’m trying to braid my hair, but it keeps getting tangled. Now will you go the fuck away?”

"What kind of braids?"

"…What?"

Tucker could be a bit stupid sometimes so Caboose repeated himself so the other man wouldn’t feel so dumb for not hearing him the first time.

"Box braids, why?"

"Oh, I can help with that!" he said happily.

Tucker blinked at him. Clearly this was not a smart day for Tucker.

"You. Can help. With my hair."

Definitely not a smart day.

"Yes! I know boxy braids. I am very good at them!"

"How the fuck would you know how to do any kind of braid?"

"I have seventeen sisters," Caboose reminded him. "I know all about hair styles, they were very good at teaching me."

Tucker muttered something that sounded like “It would take seventeen people to teach you anything” but was probably something nicer.

"So… Can I help?" he asked.

For a moment, Tucker didn’t say anything. Then he reached up and threaded his fingers through the few messy braids he’d somehow managed to do himself. They were very uneven and Caboose’s hands itched to set them right.

"You know what, fucking go for it. I don’t think even you could make more of a mess of this than I’m doing."

With a cheer, Caboose sat down on the bed next to Tucker who turned away from him and brushed all his hair over his shoulders. He had already prepared his hair and separated it into four sections so Caboose selected a chunk from the top left section, split it into one, two, three like his sisters had taught him and started braiding it.

"If you pull my hair too hard, I’ll kick you," Tucker warned him.

"I will only pull if you move too much. Moving will be bad for the braids."

First braid done, he took one of the braids Tucker had done and started undoing it.

"Hey, I’ve already done that!"

"I will do it better," he promised as he began to braid it back up. Properly this time. "See? This is much more nice looking."

"I can’t see it from here."

Caboose obligingly dangled the braid in front of Tucker’s face, only for it to be swatted away.

"Dude, I’m not a fucking cat."

"Cats scratch, I prefer dogs," Caboose said as he moved onto the next braid and brushed his own hair back again. "Washingtub likes cats though. He drew one when we were drawing with the crayons I found."

"Yeah, he said he had a couple of cats before he signed up. Can see him being a cat person."

"Do you think Church is a cat person? He has many lives, just like a cat!" He gasped and dropped his voice to a low, conspiritableb whisper. "Maybe Church is secretely a cat."

"Oh my God, Caboose. Church is not a cat! He’s a fucking AI, or part of one anyway, and before you say anything; no, he’s not a cat AI. There no such thing."

"Well I think he has cat-like tenacities."

"You mean tendencies?"

"It’s a long word beginning with T." He paused to try and tuck his hair behind his ears so it would stay out of his eyes. His ears were better than his hair, they never tried to move around. Maybe they could stop his hair moving as well.

"You alright back there?" Tucker asked, trying to turn his head only to stop when Caboose’s grip on his hair wouldn’t let him get far enough.

"My hair is trying to blind me," Caboose told him. "It has been doing that a lot lately. I think it doesn’t want me to see that Church is gone."

A deep groan came from the man in front of him.

"No, idiot, your hair isn’t sentient. It’s just getting long. If you want, I can cut it for you once you’ve finished braiding my hair."

"Will that stop it trying to blind me?"

"Yes."

"Then I will gladly accept your kind proposition."

Tucker laughed.

"You’re like a dictionary with half the words torn out," he said.

"Wash says it’s mean to call people names, Tucker. Don’t be mean."

"Un-fucking-believable. Come on, smart-ass, finish up so I can stop your hair trying to blind you."

**Author's Note:**

> I have literally just realised that Caboose is as strong as an Ox and "Ox" is almost half of "Oxford" which is one of the major dictionaries in England (don't know about USA). So Caboose is, in many ways, half a dictionary!
> 
> I love 2:00am logic :D


End file.
